Todd-

What do u think? Im guessing Jersey cant wait to get its greedy hands on powerball $$$. But Im definately down!!!!

Heck, I think it would be great - can't wait to get my hands on it too!

May go down as the first good achievement of our governor. 

That would be kind of cool, but I always thought that to two games would never want to be in the same state at the same time.

Just say no to this.

The article said it would raise $10 million.  Is that per month?  I mean that would be a very low estimate for a year...especially how well NJ sells Mega Millions.  If this does happen I can definetly see a merger of the two games on the horizon. 

Brad

This would be huge. But how would the Mega Millions consortium react to this? Me thinks they might be peeved. Peeved enough to give New Jersey Das Boot.

I'm sure that $10 million number is a net number to the government's bottom line, not gross proceeds for the game. 

I don't see a merger at all.  From a revenue perspective there is no benefit to merging, and in fact would probably produce less revenue than having two separate games in one state.

I'm not so sure.  It may actually have the opposite effect, with more states wanting to join both.  On the flip-side I'm sure there are some Powerball states that would love to add Mega Millions.

Wow!  Talk about confusing....I don't think I could handle the pressure. lol however, it would save me a drive to Virginia

Naw, only the folks at Powerball have hard feelings over the Big Game (Mega Millions) as if you read in the Powerball History sheet, it says, "The Georgia Lottery Corporation stops selling the Powerball game and joins some other lottery game...that some other lottery game being Mega Millions!  Heck, GA only offered Powerball for a little over a year before jumping to the Big Game.  I guess the PB folks are perhaps hoping NJ will do to Mega Millions what GA did to Powerball...which would be a dumb move on NJ's part as NJ has had quite a few jackpot winners as of late.  Personally, I would hate for NJ to join Powerball as I would really hate for their penchant for winning the jackpot to carry over to Powerball.

it should save me a drive to virginia also...

For lottery fanatics this would be heaven. They can play 4 days a week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Todd is from Jersey?  What exit?   :)

For a very mature, geographically compact, with lots of "border fuzziness" (lots of people from Jersey commute to NYC, Philly and towns in other states I don't even know about) lottery, I can see them looking at having both games.

There is an investment for ad/promo for the lottery, and for the lottery vendor in programming, playslips, updating training materials, etc. But unless they do a big ad campaign, that investment is pretty limited.

Will PB cannibalize MM? Yes

How much? Hard to say. Other states have seen a "hit" of 40% - but I don't think that will apply to a "daily numbers heavy", Eastern state like NJ.

How much will incremental sales be? Ahhhh - that is the kicker. To the extent that combined sales are even a little bit higher incrementally, the Lottery wins. When PB gets a big JP, they will generate even more $$$ on the margin.

While this would have been considered "heresy" just a few short years ago, I'm actually pretty warm to the idea.

Seems like a bad idea.  It's bad enough being behind someone who NEVER plays the lotto but wants a ticket for the big jackpot.  I can only imagine being behind someone who doesn't know the difference btw Powerball and Mega Millions! It's bad enough when the clerk is trying to explain QP's to a person or how they have to fill out a playslip but to Multi-State games??   It would be awful for someone who wasn't aware of the difference to buy a Powerball ticket instead of a MM and miss a Jackpot!!   Imagine having the right numbers but on the wrong Game!    I think MM's will drop New Jersey if they adopt Powerball...........